Fashion month: It’s baaaaaack

That’s me looking bedraggled at the end of Paris Fashion Week, last season. Notice the frizzy hair and dust marks on the toes of my Miu Mius. I think I had literally tripped right before this photo was taken. Sigh.

It’s showtime again!

During an idle water cooler conversation, a co-worker asked what I had been up to this month. I told her I was preparing for the annual round of international fashion weeks and a grueling month on the road. “It’s time for that again?” she asked. The collections really sneak up on you.

Here’s how it generally goes: you’re on holiday for a chunk of August, enjoying the sun on whatever beach and soaking up the last remnants of summer when — BAM! — you come back to the office, more tanned, but with only a few weeks left to send out show requests, plan out preview stories and sort out schedules for the spring shows… which naturally kick off in September. And then life gets crazy, traveling from one collection to another, scrambling to find your seat without falling over someone’s oversized, over-priced, handbag on the floor (because there’s always a handbag on the floor) getting lost trying to find that obscure off-site show (because your cab driver has never even heard of that address in the umpteenth district of Paris), and trying your best to remain upright and dignified on treacherous cobblestones past a small crowd of street style photographers without busting your arse (because even though you know them all, the street style photographers still make you feel like a freshman in high school being sized-up!)